ABN AMRO in Money-Laundering Scandal After Calling Bitcoin 'Risky'

Published on by Cointele | Published on

Having trumped up the risks of unregulated cryptocurrencies earlier this year, Dutch bank ABN Amro NV finds itself in the midst of a major money-laundering scandal.

On Sept. 26, Bloomberg reported on news of a criminal probe into the bank's alleged failures to report suspicious transactions and to adequately vet its clients.

ABN AMRO - which remains over 50% government-owned after a costly bailout - saw its shares slump by as much as 10.3% in Amsterdam trading.

The Dutch prosecutor's office further revealed that not only does ABN AMRO face scrutiny over its alleged compliance failures, but it is also being investigated under Dutch anti-money laundering and terror financing laws.

Following a warning from the Netherlands' central bank, ABN AMRO had announced this July that it needed to conduct better due diligence into all of its 5 million retail clients.

As the Financial Times has reported, ABN AMRO also tripled its staff numbers to over 1,400 in areas such as compliance, financial crime and anti-money laundering.

Notably, ABN AMRO's rival ING Group last year paid a record fine for "Serious shortcomings" in working to prevent financial crime, facilitating money laundering through its accounts for years.

ABN AMRO's crisis comes hot on the heels of a scandal involving Danske Bank's unit in Estonia, whose former head was found dead earlier this week.

Law enforcement officials raided Deutsche Bank AG this week in connection with the Danske Bank scandal.

This May, ABN AMRO's senior press officer revealed that the bank would discontinue its plans to launch a custodial Bitcoin wallet, having concluded that "Cryptocurrencies because of their unregulated nature are at the moment too risky assets for our clients to invest in."

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